


We Huddled Close

by glymr, iesika



Series: Kings Among Runaways [2]
Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-18
Updated: 2009-10-18
Packaged: 2017-12-10 10:30:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/785033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glymr/pseuds/glymr, https://archiveofourown.org/users/iesika/pseuds/iesika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You need a place to crash, kid?"</p><p>Tim stills, narrowing his eyes. "Maybe."</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Huddled Close

"Nice arm," says the older boy, and grins at him.

Tim looks up at him warily and opens his mouth to say, "Thanks," then freezes with his mouth still open. He _knows_ that face...once upon a time he had a picture of it, nice and clear, with Batman bending over it menacingly. The contrast had been so sharp, Batman's face in shadow, the boy's lit up by the streetlight, his grin cocky and unafraid. He'd said something that Tim had been too far away to hear, and Batman had laughed.

He'd _laughed_.

And let the kid go.

Tim's staring, he realizes, so he forces his mouth closed, forces himself to look away, and he realizes that the two kids by the door are grinning and cheering. The smaller of the two runs up to them - he's younger than Tim and bursting with excitement.

"That was great, man!" he says to Tim. "Jay, did you see that? Did you see what he did?"

Jay. His name is Jay.

The little kid is jumping up and down. "He was, like," and he throws a punch at Jay's midsection. "And then he was all," and he takes a swing at Jay's head.

"Hey, hey, what did _I_ do?" mock-growls Jay, grabbing the kid and swinging him around until he's upside-down. "You comparing me with that pendejo? You think I want your skinny little ass?"

The kid giggles and shrieks in delight. "No, no, Jay!" he gasps.

The door to the back swings open and the owner sticks his head out. Tim quickly hides the cue ball. "You kids!" says the older man, clearly torn between amusement and exasperation. "You gotta scream the roof down, now?" Jay just grins and swings the kid around again to drop him on his feet. The kid looks sheepish.

"Sorry Mr. Speilmann," he says.

"Yeah, what he said," Jay adds with an unrepentant grin. Speilmann catches sight of the man hunched on the floor and frowns. Tim takes a careful step backwards.

"Was that shmuck bothering the customers?" says the older man quietly, peering at Jay over his glasses, and there are layers of meaning in his words. Jay just nods. "Well, thank you for taking care of that," he says with a small smile. His earlier levity is gone.

"Actually--" Jay starts, and Tim jumps in.

"It was great!" he says enthusiastically. "He totally kicked that guy's _ass_."

Speilmann smiles and gives Jay a nod. "You're a good kid, Jason. Come in here any time you want, hear me?"

Jay -- Jason -- gives Tim a curious glance, then just smiles back and shrugs. "He wasn't much of a challenge," he says. "Want me to take out the trash?" The owner nods and chuckles and Jason starts dragging the guy across the room. The kid grabs the guy's legs to help, and together they throw him out the side door, into the alley and the rain.

"And don't come back!" says Speilmann as the door slams. "We close up in a half hour, kids," he reminds them, disappears into the back again.

Tim lets out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding and looks up to see Jason watching him.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," says Tim, pulling out the cue ball and wiping it off before putting it back on the pool table.

"You need a place to crash, kid?"

Tim stills, narrowing his eyes. "Maybe."

"You can stay at my place tonight if you want."

Tim looks up at that, suddenly suspicious. "Why."

Jason just shrugs, undeterred by his flat tone. "The more people in a squat, the warmer it gets. 'course, the stinkier it gets, too, but..." he glances out at the freezing rain that shows no sign of letting up right now, and shrugs again. "Up to you, kid. I'm not...looking for anything other than another person to help warm up the space."

He should say 'no'. Just because Jay...Jason...met Batman once doesn't make him a good person. Just because he'd made Batman laugh...

No. Tim doesn't actually know this guy from Adam. He seems nice enough, and he'd apparently been ready to attack that creep, but...

It's not safe.

Tim's read about stuff like this, how younger kids get lured into prostitution by older ones offering them help, a place to stay...

God, he's tired. He's so tired and _cold_.

"You can trust Jay." Tim looks up, it's the other kid, the older one, still hovering by the door. "He won't try anything. He's a good guy."

Jason scowls. "Yeah, well, don't go telling _everyone_."

It could all be a complicated set-up, his brain reminds him. The owner, the other two kids, they could all be in on it. People that lure in runaways who look lost and scared.

But he's so tired.

And Batman...Batman had let Jason go...

"Okay," he says, and Jason grins at him. "Thanks," he adds as an afterthought.

"I'm Jason."

"Tim. Nice to meet you."

* * *

The squat is small and dirty, but at least it's close by and out of the rain. "Home sweet hovel," snorts Jason. "You hungry, kid?"

Tim swallows. "Yes," he admits faintly. He'd been carefully conserving his money, but it had finally run out about a week ago. Since then things had been...difficult.

Jason turns and *looks* at him, examining him in a way that makes Tim turn away until Jason busies himself digging something out from under a pile of refuse in a corner. He comes up with a couple of dented cans missing their labels and says, "I think they're soup." He opens the first with a rusty can opener, and it does, indeed, prove to be soup. "Tomato," says Jason, looking pleased. Then he frowns and sighs. "Too bad we don't have any milk."

"Milk?"

"To make cream of tomato." The older boy gives him that appraising look again, but Tim is too tired and hungry to try to decipher it.

Once Tim might have been averse to the prospect of eating soup from a dirty, dented can opened with a rusty can opener and cooked over an open flame in a pot that had seen better days.

Today he drinks his share hungrily and wishes there were more. It doesn't escape him that Jason gives him the bigger portion, but he finds that he can't bring himself to object, can't say anything at all except, "Thank you."

"Hey, no problem. I know what it's like," is all Jason says. "We'd better save the other can for tomorrow morning. I don't have any more."

The only bed is a small, ratty mattress in one corner of the room with a thin, equally ratty blanket. It's dark after Jason douses the fire. Jason takes his arm and leads him to the corner. "C'mon, get some sleep. Maybe the rain will let up tomorrow," he says as he sits down on the mattress, tugging Tim to follow.

Tim tenses, resists. "I'm. I'm okay on the floor," he says.

Jason sighs into the darkness. Tim thinks he's frowning. "Look, kid, I'm not going to try anything, okay? You don't owe me anything and I'm not going to hurt you. If I wanted to, I could've done that already. It's fucking cold on the floor and *I'm* sure as hell not sleeping on it, so you might as well just lie down." Tim hesitates, and a touch of humor comes into Jason's voice. "Besides, I told you I brought you here for your body heat, right?"

He had, and Tim might not owe him anything, but he wants to pay him back anyway. He lays down.

"Jesus, you're tense," says Jason after a few minutes. "I _told_ you, I'm not--"

"It's not that," says Tim. "I believe you. I'm sorry, I'm just. Not used to sleeping with another person." Not used to *touching* other people, really, even just back to back.

"Oh," says Jason, and turns over so he's lying on his back, maybe staring up at the ceiling. "Well, you get used to it after awhile. Relax, kid. Go to sleep."

"Okay." And Tim tries, he really does. He does the deep breathing exercises his sensei taught him and listens to the rain pounding on the wall and wonders if Batman is out tonight. But thinking of Batman just makes him think of his lost Collection, carefully burned to ash at the bottom of a big metal trash barrel, and that makes him shudder.

"You cold?" Jason's voice is muzzy.

"No," he lies.

Jason snuggles up to him anyway, wrapping an arm around him and pulling him tightly against his chest. They're...spooning, and Tim is intensely uncomfortable, but...at least Jason is warm. Warm and solid and every time Jason breathes out it stirs the hairs on the back of Tim's neck ticklishly. Tim sighs and tries to relax into the warmth, tries to match his breathing to Jason's, and waits for morning.


End file.
